Last Friday, Dave and I decided to book a last-minute hotel for Saturday night in Milwaukee. We didn’t have much planned other than joining in the Mitten Fest hoopla at Burnhearts, a small bar in neighboring Bay View with an excellent beer lineup. They host the annual outdoor festival to raise money and collect donations for a local nonprofit, and lure people there with beer, food, and live music. And while I wore a more practical coat than the one featured here (and one I didn’t mind having beer splashed on), this outfit is a pretty good representation of what I typically wear in the winter for daytime drinks at cozy beer bars, running errands, and sightseeing strolls around the city. Plus, it’s a great example of why having a fun coat collection is vital for beating the winter doldrums. It’s hard to be unhappy about winter’s chill when there’s a pretty coat in your arsenal!

I can’t believe it’s Monday already! We had an extended weekend that began on Thursday with a trip to visit my parents in northern Wisconsin. We didn’t do much other than swing by the Tall Ships Festival in Duluth, Minn., which was awful. As an event manager, I can be unfairly critical of other events, but this so poorly run that it made for a sour experience. Oh well. Not all weekend outings can be stellar, right? At least it was a beautiful day!

In other news, I finally ponied up the cash to purchase Adobe Lightroom. Game. Changer. Photo editing is a breeze and images look so much better edited in Lightroom versus Photoshop where I’m far too likely to screw up the color. (I’m really tan this year compared to my normal ultra-pale skin tone. It throws me off and I find myself removing orange hues from photos!) I also scooped up this summer dress from Target (available online in black). I’m not ready to start dressing for fall just yet, especially when tropical prints look so good with this necklace from Lisi Lerch. Lisi is basically the queen of tassel jewelry and I’m thrilled to share a “Behind the Baubles” interview with her later this week! (One quick note about the necklace: the tassel was askew after its trip through the mail, but a quick clamp in a hair straightener fixed it.)